University of Virginia Library

New Trials

At least since the 1934 revisions, the
Honor System has allowed for the
reopening of a case after an original
verdict of guilty upon the presentation of
"substantial new evidence", which might
lead to a complete re-trial of the case. In
order to maintain intact the scope and
penalty of the System, the 1969-70
Committee felt constrained to extend the
ground for appellate review to include
"good cause", which has come in practice
to include any procedural malfunction in
an honor trial that seems in retrospect to
have constituted a "fatal"—as opposed to
"harmless"—error adverse to the accused.
This March, 1970 revision stipulated that
if "good cause" is in fact demonstrated in
a hearing before Honor Committee
members who did not sit on the original
trial, then the accused is to be granted a
complete retrial before this second
Committee.

Thus concludes our discussion of the
evolution of the Honor System over its
century-and-a-quarter existence. One
sympathetic to the idea of an honor system
such as the University of Virginia has
enjoyed, however, must nonetheless
subscribe to one of the following two
views, which appeared in separate issues
of The Cavalier Daily in 1969.

Either:

Or: